Plaid Cymru’s relationship with republicanism is long and tortured and attitudes to the monarchy are once again a cause of tension in the party. DAVID WILLIAMSON looks at the dilemma facing leader Leanne Wood in a Jubilee year.

WHO would have thought a politician’s loyalty to the crown would be an issue in 21st century politics?

Newly-elected Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood’s radical convictions have won her the respect of many in her party but she now faces a political dilemma.

At a time when the Queen’s popularity has hit new highs and even Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has shaken her hand, should the AM who was expelled from the Assembly chamber for calling her Mrs Windsor and who chose not to attend a Jubilee service at which the Queen was present change tack?

Julia Gillard, the Welsh-born Australian prime minister, is a staunch republican but she has showered praise on the Queen as a person. SNP leader Alex Salmond stresses an independent Scotland would keep the monarch.

If Ms Wood wants to look like a credible first minister and build support for an independent Wales, should she adopt new tactics?

Daran Hill, one of Wales’ most influential political consultants, suggests she should exercise self-censorship.

She said: “Most people in Wales – not least in the Valleys where Plaid needs to make inroads – are not republicans... The majority of Plaid Cymru is clearly republican-inclined but for all Leanne’s strengths her previous form as a republican standard bearer will colour the way she is viewed.

“Labour knows this full well and will thus keep the pressure on Leanne and some of her colleagues in the belief that Plaid Cymru can be tarnished by its leader’s hostility to a Queen she once called Mrs Windsor in the Assembly.

“It is a tactic that seems to be working as the issue remains live. It would be wrong to suggest Leanne should compromise her beliefs, but she should probably resist the temptation to continue voicing them.

“Similarly other members of her party would be wise to consider whether making statements on the monarchy, either for or against, are helping to neutralise the issue.”

The tension within Plaid was demonstrated this week when former leadership rival Lord Elis-Thomas said: “It’s a very strange situation when Sinn Fein’s policy on the unity of Ireland, and how that may happen, and their policy on the monarchy appears more reasonable than the attitude of some people in the nationalist movement in Wales.”

Saunders Lewis, one of the founders of Plaid, was a dedicated monarchist, and socialist anti-monarchists left in 1949 to found the Welsh Republican Movement.

Former Plaid leader Dafydd Wigley admitted that Plaid was not a “a raving monarchist party” but said the official stance was that the people of Wales would be given the final stay.

He said: “If Wales was an independent country the Queen would be the Queen of Wales in the way she’s the Queen of Canada and Australia. If there were to be a change from that it would have to be carried in a referendum in Wales.”

Rachael Jolley of the think tank British Future said nationalists such as Mr Salmond and Mr McGuinness had accepted the “emotional power of the monarchy for many, many people”.

Polling for her organisation earlier this year found 62% of people in Wales felt the Jubilee would have a positive effect on the British mood – just three percentage points lower than in England.

Swansea-based cultural historian Peter Stead said the economic situation of Wales was so precarious – and the Queen fulfilled her role so well – that Plaid would be well advised not to push for a republic.

He said: “You don’t have to pursue a kind of ruthless democratic logic in politics... Some things would appear to be irrational but they work.”